Changing Planet

Slow Conservation and Slow Journalism Converge in the Pamirs of Central Asia

It’s 5 p.m., and the sun’s last rays cast a golden glow on an empty road in the eastern Pamirs of Tajikistan. This route was once the Silk Road plied by merchants, nomads, and pilgrims and later by British and Russian soldiers and agents engaged in the territorial contest between Britain and Russia known as the Great Game.

Near Alichur, a small village in the eastern Pamirs, a thin silhouette appears on the horizon, and then two more, and that of a donkey.

One of the figures is Paul Salopek, the journalist who is walking to retrace the migrations of our ancestors out of Africa and across the world to the southern tip of South America. All along his path he’s giving voice to people he encounters.

People like Urmat, Abdukadir, Mahan, Munavvar. Once hunters and poachers of wildlife, including the famed Marco Polo sheep, these men have become their best protectors. Their work involves daily patrols looking for poachers, monitoring camera traps set to record the presence of poachers, and seeding the ground with nails to hobble poachers’ vehicles and motorcycles.

Salopek wants to meet me because he’s curious about wildlife in the Pamirs, and in particular he wants to know about our efforts to preserve the rare snow leopard and its prey animals.

As it happens, valleys once emptied of wildlife are now dotted with Marco Polo sheep and ibexes, and on a cold day in February you can hear the yowling of snow leopards mating. As their prey is rebounding, so are the elusive cats.

One of the six snow leopards caught caught in a camera trap in Alichur in 2016. Photo Burgut/Panthera

For the past six years the conservation organization Panthera has worked in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to reduce the threats to snow leopards. We have helped establish the Hunting & Conservation Alliance as the umbrella for the development of community-based conservancies—local people coming together to protect wildlife.

My role as head of Panthera’s Snow Leopard Program in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan is multifaceted—everything from negotiating with governments on behalf of the conservancies and on behalf of governments at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora and the Convention on Migratory Species to fixing the door of a corral and positioning a camera trap. And, of course, writing proposals for grants to fund our efforts.

Our main goals are: to stabilize populations of snow leopard prey animals (Marco Polo sheep, ibexes, and markhor); reduce human-snow leopard conflict, mainly through predator-proofing of corrals; establish informant networks on illegal wildlife trade among local people in the conservancies; support border and customs authorities, including by training wildlife detection dogs.

To assess the impact of our actions, we use ungulate population surveys and camera trap surveys.

Reassuringly, the latest IUCN Red List Assessment of the status of snow leopards downgraded the species from Endangered to Vulnerable. This means their numbers are are declining less rapidly than previously thought, thanks to conservation efforts.

Whereas we have only best estimates for how many snow leopards there are in Tajikistan (280) and Kyrgyzstan (300), and no baseline data to relate these numbers to, we’ve seen their numbers increase in the conservancies we support in Tajikistan. In Alichur, for example, from just one in 2013 to six in 2016; from six in Zighar in 2013, in the Darvaz range, to 10 in 2016; and from 19 in 2012 in Jarty Gumbez to 24 in 2016.

Slow Conservation Meets Slow Journalism

“If we choose to slow down and observe carefully, we can rediscover our world,” is Paul Salopek’s mantra. It applies to conservation just as well as to journalism.

Paul chooses to slow down to grasp the complexities of the world and its people. We slow down because that’s the nature of conservation if done right: It takes time to develop trust and build relationships.

The camera traps that recorded the six snow leopards near Alichur last year were manned by community rangers with support from Panthera biologists. Camera trap images of fluffy and cuddly snow leopards are the most visible—and gratifyingly quick— reward for years of effort.

Conservation in the Pamirs of Tajikistan is about involving the local people, and it’s about working out compromises. In remote places like Alichur where poverty is widespread and children are undernourished and sometimes don’t survive to adulthood, poaching for food has been a necessity.

But now thanks to the former poachers who have come together here to form a community-based conservancy, as well as hundreds of other former poachers who have established similar conservancies across Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, illegal hunting has almost been eliminated from the areas they manage and patrol. Marco Polo sheep and ibex have multiplied, and with them snow leopards.

Part of the motivation is the prospect of income from trophy hunts—money that can alleviate poverty by means of investments in community improvements, from building water wells to buying hospital and school equipment.

Legal and sustainable hunting of a few Marco Polo sheep a year to achieve this result is preferable to the loss of hundreds of the animals to unchecked poaching.

I personally don’t like trophy hunting. But I don’t have to worry about what my daughter will have for dinner or whether she’ll make it through the winter. Unfortunately revenue from ecotourism in this remote part of the world is no match yet for that from trophy hunting.

We hope ecotourism will contribute more. That’s why earlier this year we spearheaded the Tajik Women & Conservation initiative in partnership with the Hunting & Conservation Alliance. We want to empower women in the conservancies by training them as wildlife guides and rangers in the hope that their availability will make the idea of wildlife watching excursions in the region more appealing to female tourists.

Or another initiative, the “Tajik Kittens” (Empowering Children Through Snow Leopard Conservation), which we also began in 2017. The aim is to instill a love of nature and wildlife observation in children in the eastern Pamirs who have traditionally seen Marco Polo sheep at most as food and snow leopards as only a threat to their families’ livestock.

Kasiet, one of the trainees taking part in the Tajik Women & Conservation initiative, leads a yak on her way out of Alichur. Photo by T Rosen

Meanwhile, nearly 150 predator-proof corrals built in Tajikistan have helped change attitudes by zeroing incidents of snow leopard killings of sheep and goats across most of the Pamirs—and zeroing retaliatory killings of snow leopards by herders in the Pamirs.

Paul Salopek sees one of the corrals predator-proofed in 2016, thanks to BCI funding. Photo by T RosenTajik Kittens initiative participants during the “predator-proof corral” game. The idea behind this game is to show the children that a poorly designed corral makes it easy for a snow leopard to jump in and kill the livestock, like the kid in the photo is doing. Photo by B RosenMahan, leader of the Burgut Conservancy in Alichur, showing the children from the “Tajik Kittens” initiative how to place a camera trap. Photo by T. RosenMahan showing the children how to use a GPS and record a way point. Photo by T. Rosen

My six years living in beautiful Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan have taught me that you can’t save the snow leopards and the Marco Polo sheep unless you respect the people who live with them. And that begins with giving them voice.

Thank you, Paul Salopek, for walking through these forgotten and misunderstood lands and doing just that.

Tanya Rosen directs Panthera’s snow leopard program in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Before moving to Tajikistan in 2011, she worked in Pakistan for Project Snow Leopard and in the U.S. state of Montana for the Wildlife Conservation Society. The url for Paul’s story on the OOEW site is: https://www.nationalgeographic.org/projects/out-of-eden-walk/articles/2017-09-walking-with-animals/

Meet the Author

Tanya is the Panthera Snow Leopard Programme Director in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. She is based in Khorog, GBAO. Her current work is focused on eliminating human-snow leopard conflict, supporting community-based wildlife management and understanding the scale of illegal trade in snow leopards and their endangered prey species. Tanya is a National Geographic Big Cats Initiative Grantee.

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“you can’t save the snow leopards and the Marco Polo sheep unless you respect the people who live with them. And that begins with giving them voice”. you have spoken my heart. it is so true for over the other side of Ammu river

Thank you Tanya for briefly explaining conservancy model with the idea of trophy hunting. I hope in the medium term hunting will predominantly be replaced by eco tourism. After our return from this years Pamir-Alai expedition lead by Panthera in Kyrgyzstan we had the chance of meeting Paul and his team in Bishkek sharing our latest experience with conservancy based communities. Currently this is the most promissing model in preserving home ranges for snow leopards and its prey animals.

Thanks you Tatjana for the work you and Panthera are doing in the Tian Shan and Pamir. One achieves the goal one step at a time, like climbing a mountain. It is encouraging to see progress being made in reversing the downward spiral of available good habitat, ungulate numbers and the apex predator, the “ghost of the mts”.

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Researchers, conservationists, and others share stories, insights and ideas about Our Changing Planet, Wildlife & Wild Spaces, and The Human Journey. More than 50,000 comments have been added to 10,000 posts. Explore the list alongside to dive deeper into some of the most popular categories of the National Geographic Society’s conversation platform Voices.

Opinions are those of the blogger and/or the blogger’s organization, and not necessarily those of the National Geographic Society. Posters of blogs and comments are required to observe National Geographic’s community rules and other terms of service.

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About the Blog

Researchers, conservationists, and others share stories, insights and ideas about Our Changing Planet, Wildlife & Wild Spaces, and The Human Journey. More than 50,000 comments have been added to 10,000 posts. Explore the list alongside to dive deeper into some of the most popular categories of the National Geographic Society’s conversation platform Voices.

Opinions are those of the blogger and/or the blogger’s organization, and not necessarily those of the National Geographic Society. Posters of blogs and comments are required to observe National Geographic’s community rules and other terms of service.